National Day of Prayer set for Thursday

May 3, 2011

Borger is set to observe the National Day of Prayer this coming Thursday.
The event will take place starting at 12 p.m. Thursday, May 5, at the Veterans’ Memorial at Huber Park.
The theme of this year’s event is “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and the theme verse is Psalm 91:2, “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Various citizens in the community will be lifting prayer in conjunction with the seven centers of power, which are the government, the military, the media, business, education, church, and family.
The National Day of Prayer, in its 60th year, is an observance held each year on the first Thursday of May, which invites people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It came into being in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.
Joni Eareckson Tada is joining Shirley Dobson to lead the nation in prayer as the 2011 Honorary Chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force.
The NDP Task Force is a privately funded organization whose purpose is to encourage participation in the observance. It exists to communicate to each person the need for personal repentance and prayer, create appropriate materials, and mobilize the Christian community to pray for America’s leaders and its families.
The task force represents a Judeo-Christian point of view of the national observance, based on the understanding that the United States came into existence due to prayer and a reverence for God, according to the official NDP web site.
People with other theological and philosophical views are free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs. The NDP Task Force has said this diversity is what Congress intended when it designated the Day of Prayer, not that every faith and creed would be homogenized, but that all who sought to pray for this nation would be encouraged to do so in any way deemed appropriate.
There have been 58 presidential proclamations for a National Day of Prayer from 1952-2010, and Gerald Ford (1976) and George H. Bush (1989-91) are the only United States presidents that have signed two NDP proclamations in the same year. Each president since 1952 has signed an NDP proclamation.
In mid-April, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a ruling that previously found the law requiring the President to proclaim a National Day of Prayer annually as unconstitutional.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, based out of Chicago, Ill., ruled 3-0 that the Freedom From Religion Foundation and its plantiffs did not have the standing to continue their challenge of the act declaring a National Day of Prayer.